MUSEUM WITH NO FRONTIERS: THE LARGEST ONLINE MUSEUM. Eva Schubert. Museum with No Frontiers (MWNF)

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1 MUSEUM WITH NO FRONTIERS: THE LARGEST ONLINE MUSEUM Eva Schubert Museum with No Frontiers (MWNF) What is a Virtual Museum? When we hear speaking about a virtual museum or an online museum we imagine a webbased resource that has to do with museums, but what exactly is meant by that term remains very vague in our mind. Initially, the term virtual museum was often used by museums to indicate a section of their website where users could find images of artefacts on display at the museum. Or, in the early years of the web, the term was used also to refer to the website of a museum. In the meantime the web presence of museums has evolved tremendously, many museums made large parts of their collection available online, and the term virtual museum became even a bit old-fashion. Today people in the museum world prefer online museum or sometimes digital museum, when they refer to what we are trying to define. Also Wikipedia provides a definition for Virtual Museum ( as a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum, or can act independently, while maintaining the authoritative status as bestowed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in its definition of a museum. But if we look at the examples that are provided in the Wikipedia record, we will realise that it is almost impossible to find something in common between the referenced resources and most don t evoke anything that corresponds to our imagination of a museum. Let s have a quick look at the provided examples: Pioneers (online before 2000) Many of the listed projects do not exist anymore or take us to outdated websites. Some others correspond to the official website of the mentioned institution; in these cases the inclusion as a reference for virtual museum, most probably, is intended as the fact that those institutions were among the first having their own website. Other online museums Under this category we find titles that link to institutional museum websites as well; a link to the Google Art project, which is a huge museum database but not a museum in itself; UK s culture 24 an online guide to public museums and other cultural institutions in the UK; 1

2 or the Virtual Museum of Canada, which is a portal that brings together all museums of Canada regardless of their size. But none of these examples corresponds to what our imagination identifies with a museum. If we compare a physical book with a digital or ebook or a physical shop with an online shop we immediately recognise in both formats the specific characteristics that determine our understanding of a book or of a shop. But as we have seen, this the same cannot be said for museums. Whilst a physical museum is a clearly defined entity, the virtual or online museum, in most of the cases, is a vague entity directly or indirectly related to museums. However, under the category Other online museums, Wikipedia lists also Museum With No Frontiers. In the description of the virtual museum set up by MWNF it says that so far three thematic museums have been completed. If we open the first domain we immediately realise that we have reached something that looks different from all we have seen so far and our visual attention is captured by the virtual museum s corporate image that conveys the museum s curatorial idea, which is what is supposed to distinguish a museum. The preparation for our first virtual museum started in 2001 and it went live in 2005 (Permanent Collection). A cycle of 18 Virtual Exhibitions was then launched in Since the beginning, Discover Islamic Art was conceived as a real museum combining the offer of a physical museum with the potential of a virtual environment that builds on interactivity, ignores geographical limitations and allows putting on display material that no physical museum would be able to show such as monuments or objects that are too fragile to be exhibited. However, the idea was not just to gather material from different countries and different institutions on one website but to elaborate, in cooperation with the participating institutions, a curatorial concept that would allow creating a new transnational entity, taking into consideration the perspectives of all concerned. For this purpose a specific working method had been developed by MWNF to facilitate the task of the partner institutions. 2

3 When I was asked to propose a title for my paper I was hesitating because the definition as the largest online museum could be misunderstood and seen as an unfounded self-praise. But the MWNF Virtual Museum is in fact the largest online museum and, I would even add, till today the only real online museum if we intend the virtual museum as an independent entity that stands for itself. For the benefit of the public, also virtual museums or online museums, as it happens with ebooks and online shops, should present the basic characteristics of their physical counterpart. In the physical museum and in physical exhibitions we experience the original works on display and this provides a feeling that no virtual museum will be able to replace. On the other hand, the digital reproduction of an artefact allows unveiling details that in a physical museum would remain hidden. And a virtual exhibition makes it possible to display items such as monuments or fragile material that would remain excluded from a physical exhibition. In line with the before said there are many possibilities to define a virtual museum. However, according to the MWNF experience, the following characteristics are crucial to distinguish a virtual museum and take full advantage of combining our imagination of a physical museum with the potential of a digital entity. The virtual museum creates an exhibition space: That can be shared by different partners from the same or different countries; That gives voice to different perspectives; That is built around a clearly defined curatorial idea and concept; That creates an offer that the public recognises as the offer of a museum (a Collection, Exhibitions and related activities in the fields of education, publications, community and visitor s involvement). Let s imagine two scenarios other than Museum With No Frontiers that would be in line with this definition: the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts Istanbul sets up a virtual museum on Ismik tiles, inviting museums from all over the world to contribute material. In this case, each museum will request that its original object description is displayed (which means that the virtual museum would be international and give voice to different interpretations). Or a Turkish school launches a project where students present artworks based on the discovery of their town (painting, drawings, any kind of patchwork, etc.); at a certain point the school decides to share the outputs with other Turkish schools by creating a virtual exhibition of the works realised by the students. Other schools follow and the project further develops into a huge database of artworks produced by students that offers multiple possibilities of use. Finally two other examples based on a different interpretation but clearly inspired by the concept of a museum and a curatorial idea: Virtual Museum of Iraq: this example, set up by an Italian team, proposes a nice visual idea; it s totally static as it was conceived as a tool to raise awareness for the reconstruction o the Archaeological Museum in Baghdad after the war: 3

4 Migration Museum project (London): in this case the website replaces the museum that doesn t exist yet as a physical museum and hosts the ongoing activities. However, also in this case the exhibitions are conceived as galleries only and not as real curatorial activities: Background of the MWNF Virtual Museum The idea for the MWNF Virtual Museum was inspired by MWNF s purpose to create new exhibition formats that renounce on moving the works of art whilst making use of two major advantages of an exhibition: the possibility to develop a curatorial concept through research and documentation and raise awareness for the organiser of the exhibition. The first MWNF exhibition format was the Exhibition Trail based on the principle of encouraging the visitor to discover the selected exhibits within their natural environment and context. The methodology was developed and tested within a pilot project that was set up in the Austrian region of Tyrol. The project attracted the attention of different countries of North Africa and the Middle East as a suitable way to promote cultural heritage as a key factor for local development. When the European Union launched its EuroMed Heritage programme in 1998, MWNF was awarded the contract for the first Euro-Mediterranean cultural tourism project: the results are 11 Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Exhibition Trails, organised in 95 one- or two-day itineraries and including 1,024 museums, monuments and sites in 327 locations in 11 countries: Algeria, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. The related guides have been compiled by local experts with local understanding of history and cultural heritage; they are available in different languages and can be ordered as paperback or ebooks. People who are not in the position to travel will enjoy reading and following an imaginary trip. 4

5 The MWNF Virtual Museum The purpose was to overcome any kind of conventional border and to create an exhibition space where well-known and unknown, small and large, secure and insecure, rich and poor could not only coexist but would complement each other, generating mutual benefit for all concerned. Based on the network and infrastructure set up within the Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Exhibition Trail project, the Discover Islamic Art Virtual Museum was conceived as a shared exhibition space that should allow putting together virtually ensembles that had been separated by history, e.g. a mosque lamp on display at the British Museum and the mosque in Cairo where the lamp had originally been used; the façade of Mushatta at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Palace in the Jordanian desert or the Blue Coran of Raqqada, Tunisia, whose pages are disseminated all over the world. Museums and Cultural Heritage institutions from 14 countries joint the project enthusiastically and thanks to further European Union funding under Euromed Heritage III, it was possible to create the Discover Islamic Art Virtual Museum as a real museum enabling visitors to explore a Permanent Collection of 850 artefacts and 385 monuments, to discover in 18 Exhibitions the history and artistic legacy of the Mediterranean under the rule of the great Islamic dynasties or to browse the Virtual Museum s Database, with all texts available in Arabic, English, French, Spanish and additional local languages. Exhibition texts are available also in German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish. 5

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7 In connection with Discover Islamic Art a Learn with MWNF tool was set up to promote the use of the Virtual Museum as an educational tool in schools. A manual for teachers in Arab countries explaining the possibilities of using the Virtual Museum as a resource in schools was compiled by six Arab experts within a cooperation between MWNF and the League of Arab States. The manual is available as a paper back through most online bookshops. Discover Islamic Art was given great visibility in the media of all participating countries and already before its completion the preparation for a second thematic museum, Discover Baroque Art, started this time with all expenses covered by the participating institutions. Discover Baroque Art went live in The third thematic museum, Sharing History, set up in cooperation with partners from 22 countries, was inaugurated in April Its Collection and Database include 2,636 objects and monuments from 22 countries. A cycle of 10 Virtual Exhibitions focuses on the main 7

8 challenges of Arab-Ottoman-European relations between 1815 and 1918, which for the first time are presented taking into consideration the perspectives of all concerned. 8

9 Also in this case, we are preparing reference material for teachers to facilitate the use of Sharing History as an educational resource to allow students getting familiar with the challenges of multilateral interpretation of history. Currently we are preparing also a new Virtual Museum dedicated to the art of Carpets, Discover Carpet Art. Here it should be mentioned that new partners continue joining also the existing thematic museums: since 2010, 12 new partners have added 575 new artefacts to Discover Islamic Art; Discover Baroque Art will be expanded with new partners from Central-Eastern Europe and recently also institutions from Brazil have expressed their interest to join. The MWNF Virtual Museum s Partner institutions The MWNF Virtual Museum counts among its 266 Partners in 30 countries many of the world s leading museums. The network comprises, apart from museums of any size and kind, libraries, archives and entities in charge of the preservation of cultural heritage. Turkey has participated in two Virtual Museum projects, where it is represented by The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and by a network of public and private museums: Discover Islamic Art: Sharing History: Turkey s contribution to our Baroque programme is an Exhibition focusing on Western Influences in Ottoman Lands, which can be accessed from both, Discover Islamic Art and Discover Baroque Art. 9

10 Mission and targets The MWNF Virtual Museum aims to promote the knowledge and understand of history, art and culture as key factors for tolerance and peaceful coexistence. In line with this mission, our main target audience are people who look at artefacts in museums, monuments and archaeological sites as ambassadors of the civilisations, countries and people they represent. Specific components of the MWNF Virtual Museum focus on schools and others on potential travellers. Interaction with physical museums Several Partner Museums use the MWNF Virtual Museum to complement the collection on display. Access points to Discover Islamic Art have been installed in many museums. 10

11 My Collection and My Exhibition enable registered users to create personalised collections and personalised exhibitions. Very soon our partners will be in the position to use the MWNF Database and platform to set up virtual exhibitions as a complement of their physical exhibitions and to present those exhibitions off-line in their galleries. Challenges and future developments The main challenge with regard to the future is the financing of the maintenance of our infrastructure and the development of new projects. We are aware that we share these challenges with all cultural institutions around the world. However, as a truly independent organisation that doesn t refer to any specific country as its home and that always represents history, art and culture from the local perspective of the country concerned, these challenges can turn into real obstacles. In particular today as we return a bit everywhere to focus again on local values rather than trying to contribute our different cultural experiences to something new that we are called to build together. Museum With No Frontiers and, in particular our Virtual Museum, is committed to continue contributing its part and, happily, we can count on a wonderful team and on a fantastically supportive network of partner institutions. For further information eva.schubert@museumwnf.net 11